A Thousand Words
by MustBeAWriter
Summary: A compilation of Criminal Minds prompt fics. Will be marked as complete, but I'll add ficlets as I go.
1. Goodnight My Angel

_*So, I've gotten enough CM fic prompts now, that I've decided to start a compilation here, like the one I have for Castle. If you have any prompts that you'd like to see, you can give them to me here via review or PM, or on tumblr (imnotacoptodayhoney). _

**Prompt 1: Family**

_*Another "100" AU, established Hotchniss, based on the song Lullabye [Billy Joel]_

(Emily)

She's curled up in an uncomfortable hospital chair, trying to pace her breathing with the steady cadence of the heart monitor. That quiet beep is the only thing keeping her from completely losing it right now.

Foyet is dead, Derek and Rossi had made sure of that, but he'd almost taken Aaron with him. He's stabilized for now, but even his doctors can't confidently say he's out of the woods yet.

She fiddles with the ring he'd given her only a few months before. She can't lose him now. Not when they've barely started planning for their future. Not when she has a secret that's had her seriously considering eloping since the minute she found out. There will come a time, she knows, when she'll have to say goodbye to him. Just not now. _Please God, not now._

There's a soft knock on the door, and she's just registering Haley's presence when Jack is running to her. "Emmy!"

"Hey, honey." She lifts him into her lap, rearranging her legs to make a more comfortable seat.

"Is Daddy 'wake yet?" he asks, absentmindedly playing with her hair.

Emily swallows past the lump in her throat. She won't break down in front of Jack. She _won't._ "Not yet, sweetie," she tells him. "But hopefully soon."

She looks up at Haley, and she can tell the other woman knows. It probably won't be soon. It might not be ever.

"Thank you for agreeing to take him," Haley says softly, setting Jack's overnight bag on the little cot they've already got set up for him.

Emily tries to smile. "It's not a problem."

Haley kneels down to Jack's level. "I have to go now, baby," she says, drawing his attention away from his daddy. "I'll be back in a couple of days, okay? I love you."

"I love you too, Mommy."

She hugs and kisses him as best as she can while he's still in Emily's lap, then stands to go. She runs her hand through his hair one more time and blows him a kiss on the way out the door.

Emily and Jack are both silent for a few minutes after Haley leaves, but eventually he pipes up. "Emmy?"

"Yeah, honey?"

He sniffles a little and it breaks her heart. "I miss Daddy."

She hugs him closer, kisses the top of his head. "I miss him, too."

"Is Daddy gonna go 'way like Nana did?"

Emily sucks in a breath, squeezes her eyes shut against a fresh onslaught of tears. Haley's mother had died about seven months ago, and she knows Jack still doesn't quite understand. But he understands enough to know that his Nana is never coming back.

"No," she says, tries to put as much conviction in her shaking voice as possible. But because she can't promise the little boy anything, she adds, "Not without fighting as hard as he can to stay with us."

Jack nods and settles down, and they simply watch Aaron together, looking for any signs of life. He's fighting. She knows he's fighting, because he's _Aaron_, and he won't leave them without a fight.

He's fighting to come back to her, to Jack, to the team, and to the unborn child she hasn't had the chance to tell him about yet. He's fighting to come back to his family. She tries to comfort herself with that knowledge. That he won't leave them if he has any say in it.

She notices Jack's eyelids start to droop, so she carries him to the cot and tucks him in, making sure he can still see his daddy. She sits on the edge of the cot, smooths her hand over his hair a few times. "Do you want a story?" she asks, reaching for his bag.

"Uh-uh," he says, shaking his head. He looks at her pleadingly. "Will you sing to me?"

"Okay," she agrees, nodding. A song pops into her head, and she has to take a couple breaths before she can start.

_"Goodnight, my angel  
Time to close your eyes  
And save these questions for another day…"_


	2. Full Circle

**Prompt 2: First/Last Hug**

(Hotch)

He's hugging Emily to his chest, his hands pressed over the wound in her side, trying in vain to stem the flow of blood. He's not making a difference. There's too much blood, and the paramedics are too far out. Their UNSUB lies dead a few feet away, and Hotch is realizing that the bastard's taking Emily with him.

He can still feel her breath on his neck, but it's slow and shaky. She coughs weakly, and he feels something wet and warm on his skin. It's blood, he realizes. More blood.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, pressing down tighter on her side. "God, Em, I'm so sorry."

"Don't," she rasps, coughing again. "Not…your fault."

The brief exchange takes him back to the first time he'd ever hugged her. It happened in Colorado, after the three day standoff with Benjamin Cyrus. He'd found her finishing up with the medics and hadn't been able to resist pulling her into his arms. He'd apologized profusely, while she'd all but ordered him to not blame himself.

It's poetic maybe, he thinks; that their last embrace is so similar to their first. Almost like they've come full circle. Except she won't be walking away from this one.

She goes still for a moment, and he panics. He shakes her gently, begs and pleads for her to stay with him. He'd feel bad for the pained groan she lets out, except it means she's still alive.

He hears sirens in the distance and hope flares in his chest. If she can just hold on a little bit longer, there's a chance she can make it. She's beaten the odds before, and she can do it again.

"Let me go," she whispers, barely audible over the sirens and the clamor of voices calling for them. He flashes back again, this time to Morgan's account of finding Emily after Doyle's situations are eerily similar, and he prays for the same outcome.

She codes in the ambulance, like she had four years ago. This time, they can't bring her back. This time, he hopes, there's light and warmth waiting for her.

He thinks he might never feel warm again.


	3. Helpless

**Prompt 3: JJ tells Emily about her miscarriage.**

(Emily)

They're playing Scrabble…again. It feels like JJ and this silly online word game are all that's keeping her connected to reality (probably true). Some days it feels like they're all that's keeping her sane (again, probably true).

She's still celebrating the 45 points she got from playing QUIP on a triple word (it's the highest score of the game so far…a small victory, but a victory nonetheless) when the game trills. Emily refreshes the game, and her jaw drops.

At first it's the score that has her gaping. 36 points for hitting a triple word _plus _50 bonus for using all of her tiles on one turn. Then she's gasping at the word itself. PREGNANT.

She knows JJ and Will have been trying for another baby, knows that they desperately want a little girl. So this is too much of a coincidence for it to _actually _be a coincidence.

_JJ, _she types into the chat box, _what are you passive-agressively _not _telling me…_

There's a slight pause, then JJ's response pops up. _…um_

_OH MY GOD! seriously? you're pregnant?!_ There's a bubble of hope and happiness swelling up in her chest, one that the fear and depression and paranoia can't touch. Because, if she's reading JJ right, she's going to be an aunt again, and that makes all of this worth it.

JJ's pause before answering is a little too long, though, and her response of _not anymore _has Emily's heart crashing somewhere in the pit of her stomach.

She can't manage more than a simple _no…, _tears pricking at her eyes.

She can almost hear JJ's dejected sigh when she responds. _long story short: I was, then something happened, and now I'm not_

_I'm so sorry. _She whispers the words as she types, her hands shaking. There's pain burning in her chest now, and not from the brand or from eating something that her still healing stomach can't quite handle.

Emily feels helpless, something she's always hated. She should be with JJ right now, wherever she is. She should be there to hold her friend, to cry with her, to comfort her in a way that not even Will can.

But instead she's stuck here, off the grid, cowering like an animal in a cage. Bound by international law and a strong sense of self-preservation to stay underground. There's nothing she can do.

So, for the first time since Hotch told her she had to run, had to leave everything she knew behind, she curls her knees up to her chest and sobs.


	4. Bad Nights

**Prompt 4: sleep cuddles**

(Hotch)

He's not sure when this happened, when Emily promising to tell him about her bad days turned into him pressing a key to his apartment into her hand and murmuring, "For the bad nights."

The first time she'd actually used the key, he'd pulled his gun on her. It had taken almost an hour for him to talk her down from the resulting panic attack.

Now she texts him when she's coming over. A simple _bad night_ that has him making room for her in his bed. Most nights he falls asleep before she even gets there.

On rare nights, the worst nights, he keeps himself up and lets her cry herself to sleep in his arms. She tries to stay quiet, because of Jack, but one morning he'd woken up to find Jack snuggled up with Emily. It still scares him; how much the sight warmed his heart.

Tonight though, he hesitates when his phone goes off. There's a question mark where there usually isn't, like she knows she's crossing a line.

They're on a case, and while he can see how much she's suffering, letting her in feels too much like erasing that line completely.

He taps out _not tonight_, his thumb hovering over the send button. She's got J.J., he reasons, a much closer and more appropriate form of support. But saying no seems cruel when he remembers the tears swimming in her eyes back at the precinct, and how she'd taken a twenty minute "bathroom break", returning with bloodshot eyes that everyone had studiously ignored.

He sighs, erases his message and taps out a new one, hitting send before he can regret it. _I'll leave the door open._

Minutes later, when she's securely in his arms, tears soaking through his shirt, he realizes that he'd obliterated that line when he'd first given her the key.

He can't bring himself to care.


	5. Hypothermia

**Prompt 5: for warmth**

_set during s2_

(Hotch)

They're having the worst luck on this case.

Bodies are accumulating at an alarming rate, even for their team, Morgan and Reid have been fighting over something completely asinine for the past few days, and the blizzard-like conditions haven't let up since they touched down.

And now, to top it all off, he and Prentiss are stuck in a ditch, the SUV on its side after hitting a patch of ice on their way back to the precinct. He'd called the team, and he's certain that JJ got the message, despite the godawful connection. Help should be on its way.

Except it's been half an hour already, and there has to be a broken window somewhere from the way the temperature's dropped. If help doesn't get there soon…

Prentiss is curled up in the backseat, feigning sleep. She'd shrugged it off when he'd told her they were in for a long wait, claiming nothing could be worse than falling through thin ice in Kiev when she was seventeen.

Except her lips are blue (though to be fair, his probably are as well) and he can see how hard she's shivering (probably as hard as he is).

He's given her space up 'til now because they're not friends, are barely friendly, and he wasn't about to force his presence on someone that didn't want him around, especially when the feeling was oh-so-mutual.

The need for warmth winning out, he crawls into the backseat and tugs Prentiss into his lap.

She jerks away instantly, her reactions too quick for her to have really been sleeping. Her eyes are wide with shock and something else he can't quite get a read on.

He sighs. "Either we huddle for warmth, or we freeze to death before help arrives. Your choice."

She scowls and rolls her eyes, but reluctantly presses herself against him. Their combined body heat has her relaxing, and within minutes she's actually asleep.

(He tells himself it's the hypothermia talking when he thinks how incredibly right it feels to have her in his arms.)


End file.
